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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS # 



028 316 081 6 




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BBLIVBRaD 



AT THE COMMENCEMENT 

OP , 

THE COLLEGE OP ST. JAMES, 

Washington. Connty, Maryland., 
IN 1863. 



JOHN B. KERFOOT, D. D., Eector, 

And Professor of the Evidences and Ethics of Christianity. 



TO -W^lCH IS PBKrlXBD 



A PASTORAL LETTER 



THE BISHOP OF MARYLAND. 





BALTIMORE: 
PRINTED BY JOSEPH ROBINSON 

1862. 



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To the Clergy and Laity of the Diocese of Maryland. 
Dear Brethren : 

Having in the discliarge of official duty, had the privilege 
of hearing the Address of the Eector of onr Diocesan College 
at its last Commencementj its honest and manly appeal seem- 
ed to me to demand the attention of a wider circle than that 
in which it was first delivered. It deserves the deepest con- 
sideration of every member of the Protestant Episcopal Church 
in Maryland, who has a particle of true devotion to the inter- 
ests of the religious community to which he is attached, or of 
the State of which he is a citizen. 

May I not hope that my brethren of the Clergy will use the 
influence belonging to their position, in behalf of this most 
meritorious work here presented to their notice? Many 
might with propriety and advantage, communicate this Ad- 
dress, in part or entire, to their assembled congregations. All 
can desire the attention of their friends and parishioners to the 
claims of the College upon their support. 

To the Laity I would suggest, that while the Rector of St. 
James's College pleads only for luork, they should not fail to 
remember, that those who may not have sons or wards to bene- 
fit by securing them the inestimable advantages of the admi- 
rable training and tuition given^ can yet, and at the present 
crisis ought to, help forward, both by making known the char- 
acter of the college among their acquaintances, and by liberal 
contributions of their own, in the form of gifts, towards de- 
frayal of current expenses. 

Your faithful friend and servant in Christ, 

WILLIAM BOLLINSON WHITTINGHAM, 

Bishop of Uarylmid. 
Baltimore, July I4th, 1862, 



THE RECTOR'S ADDRESS 

AT THE 

ANNUAL COMMENCEMENT 

OF THE 

COLLEGE OP ST. JAMES, 

Wednessclajr, July 9th., 1863. 



We are to-day thur quietly ending our twentieth College 
year. The quiet close o." this year, like that of the last, is 
due to that feeling of propriety, serious concern and sympa- 
thy which, in times like these, would be offended by the usual 
hilarity and cheerfulness of a Commencement-Day. We must 
all go on with our duties, and bear ourselves forward man- 
fully and Christianly through the times and their cares; but 
Christian manliness is quick to discern and apt to regard the 
sobering thoughts of the day. 

Twenty years have run by quickly ; have seen many 
changes, have witnessed much progress, and accomplished 
no little work in the world around us. It has been so, too, 
with our little College-world. This quiet close of this year, 
our not quite half-full roll of students,* our graduating class 
of less than half of even our usual number, are to us, and 
to all who know our work and history, signs of the times. 



*The number of students in the annual session, 1860 — '61, was 112 ; in the session 
just closed, 1861— '62, was 52. 



4 

effects of changes external to us. Our twentieth year does 
not offer these facts in-doors as proofs of failure in our 
efforts and scheme. That we have had vitality to breast the 
storms of the year just past ; to live on and work on, when 
and where many deemed such work as this not possible, is 
proof of previous success and energy, that makes us see this 
cycle of twenty years close as it does over our College, with- 
out at all inclining us to give up our work. And it is chiefly 
thus to assert our strong hopes and cheerful resolves for the 
future, that I am now thus prolonging our brief Commence- 
ment Exercises. We have no thought of letting St. James's 
even suspend its living action. With that countenance and 
help from GrOD, which we humbly bat, we think, rationally 
count upon, we announce our purpose to re-open the College 
in all its departments, and in their full undiminished efli- 
ciency, at the regular day —the last Wednesday in Septem- 
ber next. We are prepared to expect^ it may be, no larger 
a roll next year than we have had this. There may be 
on it more names, or there may be fewer names than this 
year. We shall give Maryland and the region adjacent full 
chance to show whether the times leave means, leisure 
and will enough to educate the youths of our community/ s 
has hitherto been done. We shall offer the same full advan- 
tages ; though the half-roll of this, and perhaps of a year 
or two to come, may demand somewhat less work than of old, 
and must of course yield far less income. The College, there- 
fore, will not need and cannot retain quite so many officers as 
before. The wonted facilities and duties, however, shall none 
the less be vigorously maintained. Still, we who are to do the 
work for the future, must now anticipate our own great personal 
deprivation in the withdrawal of some of our working corps who 
have so long, so lovingly and so efficiently shared our College 
offices and their toils. It will be very strange and sometimes 
very sad to me, and to us all Avho work on here — to miss the 



friend and companion of early and of later life ; the pupils, co- 
workers and reliable friends and counsellers who have so long 
mingled in all the associations and duties of our College life. 
But here again the stern sobriety of the times bids every one 
suppress every regret of such personal sort, in the recollection 
of the heavy woes and cares that press the thousands all 
over the land. Pleasant memories of the past, earnest wishes 
and prayers for the future, strong hearts for the work severally 
put before us all by the G-reat Worker for us all — these be 
our mutual salutations and farewells, brother workmen, to 
day ! 

Twenty-years ago ! — and our chapel, then about half its pres- 
ent length, witnessed our opening service. Many, very many 
of the neighbors and friends that then met there with us, have 
passed away. There may be here, — I think there are here to- 
day — some who were there with our bishoj) and myself on Mon- 
day, October 3d, 1842. The bishop and I remember the day 
well ; its bright hopes, and its grave anxieties. Both 
hopes and anxieties have met their entire fulfilment. Our 
work has been greatly blessed^up to most of our hopes, — 
beyond them in some respects. Anxieties enough have come 
^7--and have passed. We have surmounted difficulties, the full 
foresight of Avhich, then, might have dismayed us. We have 
had helps, encouragements and successes, the assurance of 
which, then, would have been very pleasant. Rarely if ever, has 
a college worked its way into life, and through twenty years 
of vigorous action, at so little cost to the beneficence that ought 
to place such Institutions, and usually does place them, on some 
pecuniary basis more permanent than their own good fortune, 
or their confessed merits from year to year. And two years 
ago, before our civil troubles began, or were seriously appre- 
hended, St. James's had as fair and ample a prospect of 
permanent and dignified success, as any young College 
might desire. But for these civil commotions, I am very 



confident that our noble new edifice that was to be, and 
is to he, — would have been completed, and fully paid for ! 
This would have been to us a very bright Commencement 
Day, — and yet, too, an honestly sad one, in view of our re-, 
moval then from the pleasant neighborhood and friends, so long 
familiar to us here. We would now be passing to the proposed 
scene and home of enlarged, enduring college life and work. 
I doubt not_, too, that by this time the endowment fund, then 
proposed, would have been well advanced ; and not far short 
of its completion. And more than one hundred students would 
have been now ready and sure for our twenty-first year. That 
was the attainment and the prospect God had then' given us, 
as a college. He had not suffered our work here to fail or die 
out. But He has laid upon us here, our due and necessary 
share in the check and change His chastisement brings on all 
about us now. We must wait, as enterprizes more urgent, 
more sacredly necessary than colleges, must now wait. We 
will work on tvhile we loait His holy will . Just now we believe 
His will for us is thus to work on. Never more than now did 
the community need collegiate homes, as free as the prevailing 
turmoil will permit from the excitements of the hour. Those 
excitements will destroy, needlessly destroy many a youth. 
They will be a snare and luxury to too many young men who 
dislike hard, sober work. We see this here, — how the least real, 
enduring and energetic take most eagerly to the pleasant stim- 
ulus of an excitement that seems to them to be a plausible 
excuse from honest industry in daily tasks. Whatever be the 
rightful demands of the hour on young men, there ought to be 
enough of those worth the keeping for better times, going on 
with their education /or those better times. It will not do for 
the people to find themselves a little while hence without some 
fair supply of cultivated men. The fierce tasks of the day w^ill, 
it is true^ train many men into high degrees of excellence and 
efiiciency for the requirements of our future. The products of 



1 

the Christian College must, however, be needed not less, but far 
more than ever, when our society returns to its happier course 
of peace and progress. 

It is our hope and resolve to keep our College alive, and 
busy in so much of this work as God may now send it ; and 
ready for full work when He shall restore to us the usual scope 
and demand for it. To day, we choose not to measure our 
College by the mere present. We think of the seven hun- 
dred and twelve pupils, who through twenty years have been 
under our tuition. And we remember, too, how often the 
hours and the youths that seemed to promise no fruit in 
requital for our efibrts, have turned out before our own eyes the 
most fruitful hours and hearts in our record. So do we care the 
less to day that the times have left us but three graduates, when 
we know that these make up the fair, satisfying sum of ninety 
one graduates at fifteen Commencements. We expect to send 
out many more good men, such as we now know among the 
hundreds who have been here. But, even if this were not our 
hope now, none of us would deem the past a vain expenditure 
of time and work for any of us. 

It is not in pride or boast that we thus spea„. It is in grati- 
tude to God : — it is to justify Him from our own experience of 
His mercies here ; it is to encourage and reassure our own hearts 
and the hearts of all who care for us and our work. How the 
College and its government will bear itself amid the strifes of the 
times, the declarations made here a year ago, and the indepen- 
dent, prudent, impartial accomplishment since, sufficiently 
show. That here, in harmony, on an equality, and amid some 
fair measure of efficient working, young men may yet meet and 
live together, to learn how personal affections and courtesy ought 
to and may smooth down the ill-tempers and distrusts that 
ought never to have arisen, — is not this, the one last Collegiate 
home of such peace in this latitude, worth the effort to per- 
petuate it ? Is it not worth the mutual forbearance and self- 




denial required of you^ my young friends? May it not be 
your best discipline for such tasks of peace and harmony in State 
and Church, as your God may have in early store for some 
of you? — We think of all this, — and so we work on yet, 
— and until God bids us stop. We hear no such, bidding yet. 
And should that word come to us, — none the less has the work 
thus far done been worth the while. It will stand. It will 
repeat itself through other agencies, in better times. 

Other Christian Colleges, preceptors and pupils, will grow out 
of this work here. The foundations are laid deep and sure. 
The walls have risen up high enough to develop the work 
and tell of its full outline and sober dignity. Future years, 
and other men must and shall take up the task, and complete 
it. So I thought and felt as I stood a few weeks ago, and 
gazed vjn the well-developed and noble promise of our new 
College building. There was hope, and there was firm assu- 
rance in the sight of that strong beginning of a massive 
Home for St. James's. Sadness nearly vanished,- then, in 
hope. The voice which past and future joined in uttering to 
me that day was — That work has not been so far done in vain. 
There is the sure outline, the grand promise. The founda- 
tion is deep aii:i strong ; the plan distinct. The promise — 
none may doubt t. That work must and shall be finished. 
God may yet give us the task and privilege. He will give 
both to some agents else, if not to us. If not we, nor our times, 
the men that come after us shall see what was well begun, and 
their consciences and their hearts will compel them to com- 
plete it. 



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